


remember when i thought i was home

by EasyPeasyPanic



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anger, Don't ask me the logistics of how minato comes back for a little while, Drabble, Mentions of team minato, Minato is not happy, another one of my insomnia driven pieces, he just does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyPeasyPanic/pseuds/EasyPeasyPanic
Summary: Minato uses a seal to switch place with Naruto for a little while to see what his son's life is like...To say he's not pleased by what he sees would be an understatement
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79
Collections: why im sleep deprived 💖✨





	remember when i thought i was home

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I've real late to the Naruto fandom, but uhhh 
> 
> the way my orange boi Naruto was treated was pretty trash considering how many people could have raised him or at least not let him be so lonely growing up

* * *

_ This village is my home. I love it here.  _

He thinks this when the first few insults are hurled his way, because Minato  _ does _ love his village. He had to love it, it was inherited in his blood, his parents both died for this village. His mother had been so prideful of her headband when he was a child, boasting the significance of it, of his father's role (and death) in defending their village.  _ Konoha,  _ his mother had said while smoothing out his unevenly cut hair, peering across the empty rooftops,  _ was where I met your father. And it's where I had you, so when I think of this place, I think of home.  _

It wasn't hard to think of it that way. When Minato closed his eyes and thought of home, he thought of the BBQ place he would eat at when his mother smoked them out of their house. Of the onsen that he let Jiraiya-sensei drag him to again and again, where Minato blushed and stammered out apologizes  _ again and again. _

He thinks of Obito's grave, in the middle of the village's official shinobi graveyard, and he thinks of all the tears shed there (alone and private). He thinks of the medical kit Rin gave him that he kept tucked away in his closet upstairs his house, because he couldn't bring himself to actually  _ use _ the supplies that she last touched. He thinks of his house and his pink apron and the fact Kushina always forgot to  _ take off her shoes _ . Minato can imagine the little market where he could always haggle prices for eggplants to lure Kakashi into his house, and he knows every road to go to if he wants to carry the eldery's bags home because he had to. Minato always felt he was obligated to carry out the duties since he failed Obito. The Hokage Tower and ungodly amounts of paperwork scattered about. The nursery that he'd very carefully painted sky blue, and where he'd watched Kushina assemble the crib because he couldn't. 

_ Konoha had always been home. He loves it here.  _

"He's a monster!"

"--demon."

"Why doesn't he just go away?"

A scoff, "Why doesn't he just go away and  _ die _ ?" 

But Minato smiles his way through it, a practised neutral that always kept a polite smile on his face, but didn't invite any opposition. The same one he gave to Shimura Danzou when he asked for guardianship of Kakashi the first three times. The one he gave the council when they were making a  _ stupid _ decision. The one he gave his mother when she  _ tried _ so hard, but always fell short. The one he used to reassure Rin after Obito died, and the one he used to reassure Kakashi after Rin died. 

_ This village is my home. I love it here, but I know there are always ignorant people in it.  _

He walks faster down the road, both familiar and different all at once. He's well-aware of eyes that dance around his face and body, but he doesn't mind them. Minato hadn't been completely innocent in being unbiased, he'd been wary of many people after hearing the whispers and rumors. Cautioned Kakashi  _ away _ from Shimura Danzou, kept a distant eye on Hokage-sama's strange and supposedly dangerous student Orochimaru, always had his guard up around the few shinobi that had…

_ snapped _ during the war. That hadn't completely healed, that hadn't kept themselves strong, like unexploded tags waiting for a trigger. He'd cautioned himself, waited and watched, always sympathetic but never unguarded. But he'd seen the way the ignorant whisperings could tear some people apart. Minato hadn't been close to Hatake Sakumo, but he'd respected him. ( _ Worshiped him _ , more like, or at least the stories he'd heard about him from Jiraiya-sensei.) He'd watched him be beaten down by cruel words and shattered beyond repair, until the sharp end of a tanto seemed to be a relief. So Minato also understood to keep rumors at arm's length, to be cautious but never hateful. To listen to the rumors, but never believe them without proof. 

He's always tried to manage his own private thoughts, to not be swayed by the talk and chatter of a gossiping village. 

But he doesn't know what to do with what he's hearing now. What he's seeing now. 

A shopkeeper stepped in front of his wares like Minato might snatch it right off the tables, and glared at him like he'd personally pissed in his pot today. "Keep walking,  _ Naruto _ ." He spit the name like a curse, and Minato wanted to scream at him. But he held it in his chest, breathed in and out. 

He kept a cool head. It was just rumors and whispers, he's expierenced in those. If Kakashi could handle them at fourteen, he could handle them for a little while longer. His seal would break soon anyway, and he'd be gone again. 

But the whispers and jeers never stopped. No matter where he wandered, hands stuck in his pockets, clenched into fists that nobody can see. Minato's not really got a set destination, just exploring what's changed and what hasn't, just waiting till he finds the part of the village with friendly faces. He shifts in the borrowed clothes, the bright orange far too reminiscent of what his own mother used to wear, and a bit of an eyesore, but it was comfortable and baggy. 

(A part of him wondered why nobody's reported him yet. From the photos he's seen, he knows he almost resembles Naruto, but the boy favors his mother. Nobody seems to notice that he isn't actually the boy. All eyes on him and nobody sees past the blond hair. They can't even tell Minato and Naruto apart.)

"Don't go near him! Haru, get the kids inside, it's  _ that _ kid again." 

"Mom! Mom! Naruto's back again!"

"Why do they even keep him in the village?"

"That little  _ monster _ \--"

_ This is my home. I love it here _ . 

But it gets harder and harder to ignore the jeers. It gets more and more difficult to ignore the animosity in the starings of the shinobi he passes, the fear on the civilian's faces, or the disappointment and general meanness on the kids that walked by.

One of them doesn't share "Causing trouble again, Naruto?" One of the calls out, but his face pinches off. He gives Minato a strange once over, lips twisting into a deep frown. His eyes narrow thoughtfully, and then the boy sighs loudly. " _ Troublesome _ ." 

He walked away. 

Nobody outright approached him, not in friendship or hatred, nobody did anything to him, but the whispering was getting in his head. It was eating away at his stomach, and he felt the seal itch against his skin. Tighter and tighter and it was almost time for him to go, to switch places again with Naruto, but he clung to these few moments  _ here _ . 

It wasn't supposed to be like  _ this _ . It wasn't supposed to-- it was different with Kushina! Nobody remembered the devastation of the Kyūbi's first attack against them, where Lady Mito and the Shodai were forced to deal the hand given to them and seal it away. But with Naruto, with him they would  _ see _ first hand the sacrifice he was bearing for them. They would see the consequences of it roaming free, and they would visably be able to acknowledge all the destruction and death that Naruto was saving them from. They would see what exactly it meant to be a  _ hero _ , what it meant to keep the monster at bay with your own body, to protect his home even from infancy. 

And it...

Nobody seemed to think of it that way. Minato had gone from the shopping district to the resturants, the residential areas and the shinobi-dense areas where there were weapons shops and gear vendors. Wandered up and down the clan streets, but couldn't find the Uchiha district. 

And by the time he stops walking, his chest  _ hurts _ from holding back a stream of air that wants to turn into  _ screams _ . He's furious and hurt, he trusted his son to his godfather, to the Saidaime, to the village his son was  _ guarding _ with his own body, and this wasn't--

He'd seen things go wrong. He'd seem them be biased and untruthful and unfair. Friend-killer _Kakashi_ , he reminded himself, held the old pains close to his heart the way Kakashi did. Kakashi had always been blank stares and tense shoulders, every word another weight added, but he never complained. He took it all and straightened his back, but it was there all the same. He might not have crumbled completely, but the boy had cracked. Had shattered irrepairably in some ways. And Minato hadn't been able to stop it. He hadn't been able to relieve that pain from his student, and he can't relieve any of his son's pain either. 

How long until Naruto broke from all this...this hate? Would he be able to handle it? Or would he hold it all inside like weight holding him under like Kakashi? Let it chip away at him crack by crack? 

Minato's fists are clenched at his sides, he's shaking from the effort to hold back every single emotion he's got trapped deep inside. How  _ dare _ they? This entire was supposed to be a  _ family _ , that was part of his inaguration, a part of the Will of Fire that'd been shoved into his head every single day since he was a boy. How dare  _ they _ ? No friendly faces, no real acknowledgement,  _ nothing _ . It was like the ones that  _ didn't _ want to spit at Naruto would prefer to simply pretend he wasn't there. 

Ink burns into his skin, the seal matrix forming and reforming, and he's running out of time. He's running out of time before he's gone again, and Naruto's back  _ here _ to be treated like this, his absence unnoticed by an entire village. Minato's strange face in Naruto's clothes wasn't enough to trigger a search party, and it made him bubble up with fresh rage. If his son disappeared, would anyone be  _ concerned _ ? Would they care about his absence? Those jeers, the glares, the pain, the hate, the weariness; it was consuming him. His son dealt with those stares every day. He dealt with the crappy little apartment and the whispers and the lack of family every single day.  _ His son _ . Minato's defenseless little boy, just a child with the greatest burden. 

Where was Jiraiya now? Kakashi had been so young, he could understand why he couldn't take the responsibility, but the others ? Mikoto and her husband? Not even Shikaku and his wife?  _ Anyone _ ? Nobody cared enough to take care of their (his and Kushina's) baby? 

He breathes through clenched teeth, trembling. 

_ Monster. Evil. Demon. Stay Away from Him! He's coming closer! Why doesn't he just DIE? _

Minato blinks. 

Stares up at the bright blue sky, down at the wet against his fingers, and back up at the bright sky. It wasn't raining. It wasn't raining. 

He was crying. And did Minato still have a right to do  _ that _ ? To weep over his son? No.  _ No _ . He didn't, not anymore. Not when he's been responsible for it. Not when he'd made the split second decision to use his newborn as a container, like that teapot that held the One Tail in Sunagakure. Minato had made that choice, and he weeps for his son, over unfriendly faces that should  _ thank _ Naruto. He wouldn't have done it if he thought they'd treat his son like that. Like his son had been personally responsible for that attack, like he was the beast himself!

The scream rips out of his chest as the technique fades. He's out of time. But Minato goes out  _ screaming _ . 

"He was supposed to be your  _ hero _ !" He  _ snarls _ , hoping and praying that someone,  _ anyone _ , hears him as he fades away, back to Naruto's seal, back to waiting passively and unseeingly. He hopes the village hears, hopes Jiraiya hears, hopes they know exactly what he's thinking. Exactly what he's feeling, his anger and grief. 

_ This village was my home. I used to love it here.  _

* * *


End file.
